A HISTORY OF SUSSEX country ; but besides external wars there was discontent and rebellion within the realm. As Prince of Wales Edward had developed a great affection for a dashing young Gascon squire, Piers Gaveston ; indeed during his banishment from his father's court in the summer of 1304, when he spent some time in Sussex, where he maintained a stud of horses at Ditchling, his chief regret was for the absence of his favourite/ On his accession he immediately began to shower his favours upon Piers, bestowing upon him amongst other things the city of Chichester,* until at last the English nobles united their forces to destroy the upstart. The Earl of Arundel was one of the leaders in this movement, but the Earl of Warenne was with difficulty persuaded to take part against the King.^ The removal of one favourite only made room for others, and the place of Piers Gaveston was soon filled by the Despensers, to the younger of whom, son of the Earl of Winchester, the King granted the town of Shoreham* ; the earl himself, in 1324, obtained from Alina Mowbray a grant of the reversion of the castle and honor of Bramber on the death of her father William Braose, the tenant for life.^ It was a dispute over the purchase of William Braose's Welsh estates that led to the rebellion of the Earls of Hereford and Lancaster. This rising ended in complete failure and involved several Sussex men in the ruin which overtook its leaders. Bartholomew de Badlesmere, who held a number of manors in this county, had fortified his castle of Leeds in Kent against the King, so that in October 1321 a royal summons was issued to the men of Essex, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex to assemble for the capture of Leeds castle.* When it fell its constable Thomas Colepepper, a member of a family of note in Kent and Sussex and himself a landowner in the latter county, was sentenced and executed at Winchelsea' ; while, besides Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Francis de Audeham and Bartholomew Ashburnham, both belonging to Sussex, were condemned for treason. ° Several other Sussex men lost their estates, and it seems that the whole county was somewhat disaffiscted, as in February 1322 the commonalty of knights and esquires of Sussex were fined >C2oo because some of them had failed to come to the place assigned them.' This probably refers to the summons already men- tioned, unless it be connected with the assembling of the King's army at Cirencester in the previous December, to which Surrey and Sussex were ordered to send five hundred foot under John Dabernoun, Peter fitz-Reynold and John de Boudon." The accession of Edward III. put the kingdom for a while into the power of Queen Isabella and her favourite Roger Mortimer, till in 1330 the young King took the government into his own hands and seized and executed Mortimer, issuing at the same time commissions of array to resist the King's rebels to the mayor of Chichester and Bartho- ' Suss. Arch. Coll. ii. 2 Chart. R. i Edw. II. no. 24. 3 T. Walsingham, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 130, 131. * Pat. i Edw. III. p. 2, m. 18. s Pat. 17 Edw. II. p. 2, m. 9, 6. « Rymer, Fcedera (Rolls ed.), ii. 457. ' Pat. 15 Ew. II. p. 2, m. 24d. s ibid. ; and Chanc. Misc. R. 17-4. 9 Pat. 15 Edw. II. p. 2, m. 31. >» Ibid. p. I, m. 7. 508
